Willamette Week, January 20, 2021 - Volume 47, Issue 12 - Indivisible?

ALEX WITTWER

has been taken from them. I think that leaders should be looking at the totality of the impact of their decisions.

Jayapal: The economic consequences absolutely have been devastating in some cases. But the way to get the economy back on track is to stop the spread of COVID. We can’t actually get the economy back on track if we don’t stop the spread.

WW: Stan, you told The New York Times in August you were “scared to death that what’s happening in Portland will ever come out to where we live.” What did you mean by that?

Pulliam: At the time of that interview, I think we were right around a hundred days straight of protests after the tragic killing of George Floyd—and much of the protesting was very peaceful, absolutely. But we also saw statutes being torn down and burned and all kinds of things. We just had to turn on the local news.

Certainly, people in our community would be nervous about that reaching our community.

ALEX WITTWER

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE: A “Wall of Moms” at the federal courthouse in downtown Portland last summer.

Jayapal: The governor has the authority to do what she’s done. I agree with you that people need to understand policy.

Public health policy works better if people understand the why. And I agree with you that the state has not been consistent or clear through the course of the pandemic about setting out a set of principles and a rationale, and then explaining to people how we got from the principles and the rationale to the policy that was enacted. I have been puzzled by nail salons and hairdressers remaining open while other kinds of establishments are closed.

But we can’t have everybody making their own decision about what they think is safe. What happens in Sandy doesn’t stay in Sandy. I mean, a virus doesn’t respect municipal boundaries.

Pulliam: I would again ask where’s the evidence that these shutdowns are of businesses that contributed to the spread?

And what I’d also like us to concentrate on a bit is our future.

WW: Are you saying you believe COVID is not really a serious threat?

Because in Sandy, that’s not what we’re all about. We stand in solidarity with our local police departments that work so hard to keep us safe. And we certainly don’t want to see our small businesses being destroyed with vandalism. That’s not what we’re all about. And quite honestly, it’s not what Portland used to be all about.

Pulliam: I believe it absolutely is serious, but there’s still a very high percentage chance that people are going to survive who come down with COVID-19.

Jayapal: That’s no comfort to the folks who actually have died. And it ignores the fact that there’ve been long-term consequences even if you survive.

ROUGH RIDING: A statue of Theodore Roosevelt was removed from the South Park Blocks after being toppled by rioters in October.

Pulliam: Yeah, certainly. And there’s serious consequences that those individuals that are still living and are put out of work and not able to get their unemployment checks and have found that everything that they’ve worked for their entire lives ALEX WITTWER

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Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com

Jayapal: I think we’re probably not going to agree on the characterization of what happened and is happening in Portland. The picture of Portland as a hotbed of violence and vandalism just doesn’t reflect the reality of what has happened here over the past many months. I am incredibly proud of the way that Portlanders stood up and spoke out about the murder of George Floyd and about racism and about Black Lives Matter. For a hundred days, they put themselves on the line, went to the Multnomah County Justice Center, took on tear gas. So if we’re going to talk about calling out violence, we also need to call out police violence.

Pulliam: I think a lot of the violence and destruction that we saw coming out of the city of Portland was quite embarrassing, for most of us in the state. A lot of these small businesses along the main streets of Portland, they weren’t closed because of COVID. A lot of them were closed because of the violence going on in Portland. And I continue to hear people wanting to come down on what happened in D.C. and the right-wing protests while just turning a blind eye to the destruction and violence that happened in Portland as part of these protests. I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

I’m guessing that we would both agree that the people that stormed the Capitol should be prosecuted and put in prison. And if we agree on that, do we believe that the folks found to do violence and destruction in Portland should be prosecuted as well?

PORTLAND IS BURNING: A mattress fire across the street from the Portland Police Bureau’s North Precinct.